Is the Civil War or first human spaceflight more significant? An historian weighs in.

Recently we discussed (here and here) a rather remarkable pair of anniversaries on the same day, April 12 — the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War and the 50th anniversary of the first human spaceflight. I asked readers which of the two historians will look back on 200 years from now as the more significant event in human history. Readers voted about 60-40 in favor of the first spaceflight.

As the topic provoked such excellent discussions I decided to bring an historian into the conversation, and was delighted to find Alberto A. Martínez, at the University of Texas at Austin, willing to take up the question. As he writes about the history of science (his new book is titled Science Secrets), Martínez is perfectly suited to address this question.

And so he has in the guest blog entry he’s written below.

If you write about the past long enough, people ask you about the future. I try to not speculate about the past, to instead describe it fairly. As for the future, since we can’t describe it we might well speculate! Eric Berger asks me this question: Two centuries from now, what event will be regarded as the more significant one in the course of human history: the first time a man rocketed into space, or, the beginning of the U.S. Civil War?

It’s an interesting question, a challenge to think about how local events affect global history. On April 12, 1861, before dawn, the militia of the newly formed Confederate States of America attacked Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, which U.S. soldiers had refused to vacate. A hundred years later, on the morning of April 12, 1961, the Soviet Union launched Yuri Gagarin into outer space in a Vostok 3KA spacecraft, traveling around the entire planet in less than two hours; Gagarin landed by parachute, alive and well, in farmland of the Soviet Saratov region.

My qualifications for answering are mainly that I specialize neither on spaceflight nor on military history, so I have not much bias either way. Still, it’s difficult to deal with contentious interpretations of the Civil War: why did it happen, what was at stake?

The Civil War was mainly about slavery and states’ freedom. The fourth Article of the U.S. Constitution said that no slave could be freed by escaping into another state, yet several abolitionist states disregarded that Article, by releasing incoming slaves from servitude and rejecting slaveholders’ rights to transport slaves as property. Lincoln ran for President on the platform that he would deter the expansion of slavery; critics claimed that he actually wanted to eliminate slavery. Therefore, once Lincoln was elected, seven slaveholding states declared secession before he even took office. The first, South Carolina, in its 1860 “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession” argued that the northern abolitionist states had violated the 1776 Declaration of Independence (“are and of right, ought to be FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES”) and the U.S. Constitution too by encroaching on South Carolina’s sovereign rights. They and other states tried to exercise their right “to institute a new government.” Then, Lincoln initially avoided the contentious issues about slaves, and argued instead that the Union was perpetual, that no state had the right to secede.

To determine the war’s effects I won’t speculate about what would’ve happened if the South had won. Instead, consider a simpler matter, suppose that the U.S. government and other countries had recognized the Confederacy as independent, suppose that the military had let the South keep lands and forts without enabling war. Suppose that the Civil War had not happened, that Lincoln had rigorously obeyed his proclaimed desire to avoid bloodshed. Many countries and states had already eliminated slavery, so it seems likely that, under world pressure, the Confederate States too eventually would. More than 600,000 soldiers would not have died, nor many civilians. The infrastructure and wealth of the South would not have been devastated. Despite widespread claims that the Confederate States would have more rights, their approved Constitution of 1861 hardly suggests that. The United States would be a smaller, weaker nation. Some “rebel” states might rejoin, but states with strong economies could continue as sovereign nations, setting a tempting precedent for other strong states. In hindsight, it is easy to imagine that the Civil War was about the right of a minority, slaves, against oppression from a majority, but documents from the time, such as Lincoln’s speeches, explicitly show instead that the conflict was about the rights of “a majority,” the U.S., over the interests of a minority, the “rebel” states.

The costly space race between Soviets and the U.S. was immensely consequential, as it accelerated the development of many technologies: computers, aeronautics, satellites, weaponry, etc. Yet manned space flights, in particular, did not entail an extensive restructuring of America or the Soviet Union. But later, spaceflights contributed to international collaborations.

To date, a consequence of the Civil War: the cohesion of the U.S. as the most powerful centralized government in the world, is by itself far greater than the extent to which the first manned spaceflight affected societies. This is partly because nearby space, unlike the New World encountered by Columbus, does not offer evidently rich environments for human development. I expect that two hundred years from now, the Civil War will still be considered a more consequential juncture in world history. Still, I might be wrong, a potential terror can make the space race more significant. If someday we need to deflect an incoming massive asteroid, some factors that previously accelerated space technologies (including the Cold War) will seem awfully important.

35 Responses

Martinez’s answer isn’t all that different from mine. For the world of 2011 the Civil War is obviously the more important. In my hopes for the future of mankind, I do hope that Yuri’s flight yields significant dividends for us 200 years from now.

I’m amused at the idea that the Internet Archive might still be around in some form in 2211, and that one of our descendants has stumbled upon these very comments. I bet we’ll look silly and quaint to them.

First of all, the question is worded wrong, and even Mr. Martinez alludes to it when he mentions the “cohesion” of the United States.
Is is not the Civil War as such, but the “outcome” of the Civil War that was important.

FACT: “The so-called “Civil War’ was about state’s rights – PERIOD. Ever hear of the Corwin Amendment — proposed by Congressman Thomas Corwin of Ohio, passed by Congress 2 March 1861, and endorsed by Abraham Lincoln. That amendment read: “No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.”

If the seceded States had wished to perpetuate slavery, they had only to re-join the Union and ratify that amendment.

They did not because they seceded to escape an overweening, all-intrusive big government – the same reason that thirteen States seceded from Britain in 1776, Mexico from Spain in 1818, and Texas from Mexico in 1836.

STATEMENT: “Many countries and states had already eliminated slavery, so it seems likely that, under world pressure, the Confederate States too eventually would”.

FACT: Many great Southerners, like Robert E. Lee, “Stonewall” Jackson (who supported a Sunday School for black children) and President Jefferson Davis, all knew that slavery in the CSA would have to end eventually. Virtually every other country in the New World (other than Haiti, where the slaves themselves revolted) ended it peacefully. Lincoln had a proposal on his desk to reimburse the slave owners 50 cents per dollar value, but he decided to give it the “pocket veto” allegedly because there was not enough support in Congress for it. If ending slavery were the reason, why did the Constitution of the CSA specifically forbid the foreign slave trade? If ending slavery were the reason, why did numerous Union soldiers desert immediately upon hearing Lincoln issue his misnamed “Emancipation Proclamation?” Does any of this seem logical to you?

In January 1861 a Secession Convention met in Austin. It adopted an “Ordinance of Secession” on February 1 and a “Declaration of Causes which impel the State of Texas to secede from the Federal Union” on February 2. Texas voters approved secession. As a result of his steadfast opposition to secession, Sam Houston – hero of the Texas revolution against Mexico, and our city’s namesake – resigned as governor rather than be a traitor to the United States of America.

Quoting from the first part of the infamous Declaration of Causes as to the circumstances under which Texas entered the Union: “She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery — the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits — a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time….”

Continuing to quote from that same, disgraceful document: “That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding States.”

And take into consideration the “cornerstone speech” made by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens in Savannah, Georgia on March 21, 1861, not long after the secession of many of the southern states, yet before hostilities began. Stephens compared Thomas Jefferson’s views about slavery with those of the Confederacy. Stephens argued that Jefferson believed, “… that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically…. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the ‘storm came and the wind blew.’ Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.”

Again, those are the words of the Vice President of the Confederacy, said after secession and before hostilities occurred.

Proud rebel is 100% correct. Also consider the fact that five “slave” states (Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky, Kansas and Missouri) remained in the Union. Also consider the FACT that many, if not most Northern slave owners did not free their slaves until after the 13th amendment prohibiting slavery was ratified in December 1865. One, Union General in Chief Ulysses S. Grant, when asked why he did not free his slaves during the war, replied “Good help is so hard to get these days”.

It was legal throughout the United States for one person to own another as a slave at the time of the war between the states. Yet Lincoln’s “emancipation proclamation” violated provisions of the fifth amendment, in depriving southern slave owners, and only southern slave owners, of their property without due process of law and without just compensation after eminent domain was exercised.

So if I have the argument right “…the cohesion of the U.S. as the most powerful centralized government…” means if the US is not cohesive or the most powerful in another 200 years, the Civil War would not be the most significant. And who is to say or speculate that separate countries would not have had the same impact as a cohesive US.
We still mark the death of Jesus as highly significant. While the Roman Empire is remembered for its technical accomplishments and its Senate — not for the cohesion of its territories.
And yet, no matter what occurs during the interveining 200 years, marking the technological achievement and advancement of man’s first venture into space will still stand as a remarkable date.
If Eric were arguing the signing of the Declaration of Independence, I might concede the the accomplishment of man in space. As it is, I still put man in space ahead of the Civil War in 200 years. At least we know it wasn’t about democracy.

Usually only like posting once (not having to reply), but then I ran across this. Whereupon I realized while this is an excellent discussion, it is debatable whether either the Civil War or man’s first spaceflight will even be remembered in 200 years.
Characterized as Rebels and onions got no respect, a student wrote:
“The rebel and onion armies showed grose negligence by having many of their battles right inside national parks, like Gettysburg.”http://shitmystudentswrite.tumblr.com/

A union defeat in the civil war would have change the outcome of the 19th and 20th centuries. Most northern states would have eventually reunited within the confederacy; England would have regained it’s economic, military and political dominance here as well. The economy of the nation would have been enfeebled; It’s possible that California and the Western States would have become part of Canada.

In Mexico the Juarez forces would have been defeated and the democratic revolution there would have been crushed making it the protectorate of England, France, and the Habsbourgs.

This is a world of nightmares…. Oh, and human space flight would not yet have happened.

Re: It’s possible that California and the Western States would have become part of Canada.
The discovery of gold in California in 1848 officially–It is amazing that the Spaniards knew about silver in Arizona, but never found gold in California–the colonization of the Oregon territory, the Mormon colonization of Utah, the discovery of silver in Nevada, the discovery of gold in Montana(1863), discovery of gold in Colorado (1859), etc. dumped tens of thousands of rough and robust men in each of those territories.
The question then was not “would the U.S. or Canada get them,” but
would the U.S. or C.S.A. get them.

Historically the South was dependent on agricultural expansion to maintain its appetite for new lands as old lands lost their fertility. The North under the Whigs saw little value in expansion. Only when the Republican Party with leaders like the explorer, James Fremont, did the North develop a desire for expansion mainly to claim the mineral wealth of the west.

The first railroad routes across the west were surveyed by none other than Jefferson Davis. By the late 1850’s railroad construction reached a level of expansion where it was obvious that the next step was to cross the west. Had the Civil War not been forced on the South there is little doubt that the first Transcontinental Railroad would have gone through El Paso, Texas and the Gadsden Purchase land sometime in the 1860’s. This move would have sealed the South’s power over California, much of the mineral wealth of the west and trade with China and the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). One of the reasons this would have happened is that railroad construction was cheaper using rented slave labor.

The North occupied the leadership of the South with the Civil War while it began construction of its railroad on the inferior route up the valley of the Platte and across the daunting Sierra Nevada mountains.

The southern route was completed under California control in 1881.
Canada did not complete its first Transcontinental Railroad until the mid 1880′s.

Sorry, but slavery was the main reason state’s rights was an issue in the mid-19th century. Yes, some Southern leaders did treat slaves as people and many Union soldiers were not for emancipation, but that does not take away the prominence of slavery in the debate. Stop trying to frame your current political grievances with the federal government in some grand historical master narrative that idealizes the cause of the South. For the Southern Elite, state’s rights meant the right to uphold an economic and social system based on slavery. For slaves, the war was only about slavery. For poor white Confederate soldiers, they fought because they were being invaded and, like Union soldiers, they deserted in hordes.

andy, the FACTS don’t bear you out. another of the discriminatory taxes passed by the northern states was the Morrill Tariff of 1861, which nearly doubled the taxes on imported manufactured goods used primarily in the southern states. That act led directly to the secession of at least five states in early 1861. Second, there were five “slave” states that did not secede from the union (Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri and Kansas), though many in those states did want to secede. Third, the “emancipation proclamation” hypocritically applied only in those areas in the southern states that were under the control of the invading union army. No slave in any northern state was freed by that proclamation. Union General In Chief Ulysses S. Grant did not free his slaves until AFTER the thirteenth amendment was ratified in December 1865, 8 months after the war ended. When asked why he did not free his slaves during the war, General Grant replied: “Good help is so hard to come by these days.”

The approximately eighty-five percent of southern whites who did not own slaves and the thousands (8000 is one figure I’ve seen) of blacks who fought for the Confederate Army did not fight to keep slavery. Most of them considered that the institution of slavery kept them from being able to get and keep jobs. And the blacks who fought for the Confederacy certainly had no reason to fight “for slavery”. But they did want to fight because the invading Union army was invading their homeland.

To quote Dr. Walter Williams’ November 1, 2010 column entitled “Our Black Confederates”: “One would have to be stupid to think that blacks were fighting in order to preserve slavery. What’s untaught in most history classes is that it is relatively recent that we Americans think of ourselves as citizens of United States. For most of our history, we thought of ourselves as citizens of Virginia, citizens of New York and citizens of whatever state in which we resided. Wesley says, “To the majority of the Negroes, as to all the South, the invading armies of the Union seemed to be ruthlessly attacking independent States, invading the beloved homeland and trampling upon all that these men held dear.” Blacks have fought in all of our wars both before and after slavery, in hopes of better treatment afterwards.
Denying the role, and thereby cheapening the memory, of the Confederacy’s slaves and freemen who fought in a failed war of independence is part of the agenda to cover up Abraham Lincoln’s unconstitutional acts to prevent Southern secession. Did states have a right to secede? At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, James Madison rejected a proposal that would allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. He said, “A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.”

Technically it wasn’t slavery it was the abolitionist movement that drove the issue. Like I said a technicality but it is important to understanding what drove people to think war with in our borders was an acceptable course to resolve the issues of the time. The abolitionist movement polarized every view point with their uncompromising, fanatic belief in their cause. Look at what the raid on Harpers Ferry did to inflame opionons on both sides of the issue. Abolitionists were crusaders on a mission that wouldn’t stop for any reason until slavery was gone.

I’m still trying to figure out how anyone could even mention the Civil War and human space flight in the same thought process, much less the same sentence.

The Civil War was a historic event to be sure, in the way it changed this country from that point forward, but it is important ONLY in the United States. You won’t find many people outside the U-S who have any idea what the Civil War was about.

The meaning and significance of human space flight reach far beyond the boundaries of the United States to encompass the entire human race.

The first human space flight was epochal in its scope. It was humanity’s first attempt to step off the planet of its birth, and explore the ultimate unknown – the last frontier.

This achievement required a technological leap forward that is still changing the world.

The best part is knowing that once space flight has been achieved, it won’t stop, and humanity will continue reaching farther and farther into deep space. Just as the voyages of Columbus opened up a New World for Europe, those first human space flights have opened the door to the Universe for all human kind.

I’m convinced that there can never be a comparison between the Civil War and space travel. Why? Check out the below excerpt:

“In American Holocaust (1992), David Stannard estimates that some 30 to 60 million Africans died being enslaved. He claims a 50% mortality rate among new slaves while being gathered and stored in Africa, a 10% mortality among the survivors while crossing the ocean, and another 50% mortality rate in the first “seasoning” phase of slave labor. Overall, he estimates a 75-80% mortality rate in transit.”

So,will it appears that space flight was a step forward for humanity…apparently slavery was a step backwards.

jennie, slavery is still around. Young girls are still kidnapped in the U.S. and taken to foreign countries to be sold as slaves to individuals of several nationalities. one thing many of those individuals share is their claim to be muslims.

Slavery in the southern states would probably ended sometime in the 1870s, even if the war between the states had never occurred. it was just not economically viable. A slave owner was responsible for housing, clothing, feeding and caring for the health of his/her slaves, whether they worked or not, or whether or not the slave owner made a crop. A northern factory owner or farmer could hire whomever he wished for a pittance, and was not legally or morally responsible for providing them with shelter, clothing, food, or health care. Workers were responsible for providing for their own needs out of the pay they earned working for the owner. Slavery was bound to fall in this country.

The constitution of the southern confederacy prohibited any state in the confederacy from engaging in any international slave trade. It also prohibited tariffs, and it required a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of the Confederate Congress for the expenditure of any funds.

Most of the people who continue to deny the role of slavery as the central “state’s rights” issue that led to the Civil War are loyal Republicans. Yet Abraham Lincoln, the subject of their wrath, is considered by most current Republican politicians and pundits to be the father of the modern Republican party. Lincoln has been lauded by Bush, Gingrich, Palin, Boehner, Cantor and many more as a point of pride for their party. They have all at one point claimed the Republican Party as the “Party of Lincoln”…

Incidentally I am not surprised you couldn’t find many historians willing to weigh in on this matter, Eric. Most historians I have met in my life find such arguments tedious. Both the events you mention are important milestones in human history for different reasons. Why must one be more important than the other? What is to be gained intellectually from a discussion on which event is more important?

But I believe there’s a significant benefit to academics to be gained from engaging the public by sharing both their knowledge, and not appearing to be perpetually locked in an ivory tower. So while there are no publications in answering this question, there are opportunities to broaden one’s reach. My thanks to Alberto for doing so and I have encouraged him to not be a stranger in that respect.

Someone looking for an argument thought this question up. A great subject for the talking heads to debate. The “right answer” depends about as much on whether you are a Democrat or a Republican as any other criteria. Beyond those comments I am not going to be drawn into this made up which is more important line of discussion.

Hey though if you want to do a logical expansion why not throw in WWII as an option. If that had not been fought where would we be?

I suppose you could look at USA as European Union. You have multiple “countries” trying to work together but there will always be something other countries don’t like about other countries. They already have problems (PIIGS). It is like that with states in USA. Maybe it is better to leave more powers to the state level than federal level to force the whole country to follow the same thing (communist or socialist?). Look at China and Russia if you want to compare the size to USA, they had to kill over 100,000,000 of their own people to try to make communism work.

After having tried to read both side to the story of real cause of Civil war, I am not convinced that slavery had to do with it but face it, things were better in USA than Africa.

I would think Federal Reserve (private banking, not part of US Gov’t) would have play biggest role of all. It’s basically monopoly money. No gold standard. Easy to get very greedy. Maybe we just got lucky to be where we are now compared to other nations but a lot of people from many nations are calling us sheep unaware of what is really going on. That’s the cool thing about internet. You get to talk to people from South Korea, Brazil, Egypt (very few), Britain, Israel, India, China (very few), etc. It is mind blowing on how they think of all of us. It seems that they call us the most brain washed people in the world. Ouch…

Blacks were not enslaved because they were black but because they were available. Slavery has existed in the world for thousands of years. Whites enslaved other whites in Europe for centuries before the first black was brought to the Western hemisphere. Asians enslaved Europeans. Asians enslaved other Asians. Africans enslaved other Africans, and indeed even today in North Africa, blacks continue to enslave blacks. — Thomas Sowell

As important as I think space is to humanity’s future, I believe Mr. Martinez hits a balanced thoughtful tone and comes to a valid conclusion about what is more important today in our history.
In two hundred years? I think there is no way to predict. We are one or two significant breakthroughs away from having space be *the* focus of our culture.

For those who are defending the Confederacy, all I can say is that an American whose family has lived in the South since before there were states in the South, why?. The Confederacy was a horrible bloody corrupt badly managed idea that would have crippled the US, been open to European colonial and imperial adventurism, and was supporting the most corrupt social convention: slavery. Why in the heck waste time defending it?
We are Americans, first and foremost, and we are all better off for it.

You do not have to be in Egypt, or outside America, to be enslaved today. Slavery might not be the item for discussion. I suspect some slave owners went to heaven before Lincoln. Very few of us claim or even have access to every form of liberty (*). We are mainly enslaved, or we die. The only unalienable rights we have remaining are “Life”, and occasionally “the pursuit of happiness”.

That is we are almost all, universally “forced” to work to live and are a slave to the “wage”. And those that are not “forced”, are looking over their shoulders to protect what they have so they do not have to work [yet, another form of self-imposed slavery]. Most of us sacrifice our unalienable rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” to an employer for a wage, even if the employer/superior is corrupt, a fraud.

Historically, most of our ancestors escaped one form of bigotry and prejudice then go to another form of enslavement for, not a better life, but a chance at a better-than-what-we-have-now. In1790 my GGGGGG grandfather came from Germany as an indentured servant, and my mother’s GGM came from Hungary (via Czechoslovakia/Slovakia) probably to escape religious persecution. Farmers have large families for a reason.

Up to the Civil War:

In the founding of America, religion and slavery were strangely connected. Given that the real American forefathers came over to escape Protestant/Catholic religious persecution, consider their dilemma of captors/slave owners vs. Deuteronomy (24:14-15). They felt enslaved religiously where they lived and escaped to a land where slavery was acceptable.

For the individual slave, the tangible items missing for human dignity are clear: choice and wage, and perhaps ownership (horse, books, etc).

The forefathers looked to Exodus from Egypt as the foundation of Judeo/Christian thought for an example of “choice” and freedom.

Included in the slave-wage is free room and board (a life), which was about the wage received by a farmer. Many owners treated the slave and family as a “valuable commodity”.

But also, a couple “current” discussions on fair wages are founded in Deuteronomy (24:14-15):

“The exhortations of the Prophets and the words of Deuteronomy remain in our hearts: ‘Give [the laborer] his wages in the daytime, and do not let the sun set on them, for he is poor, and his life depends on them…” quoted here:

And, Deuteronomy (24:14-15), we find:
Do not withhold the wages due to your poor or destitute hired hand, whether he is one of your brethren or a proselyte living in a settlement in your land. You must give him his wage on the day it is due, and not let the sun set with him waiting for it. Since he is a poor man, and his life depends on it, do not let him call out to God, causing you to have a sin.http://www.aish.com/ci/be/96546549.html

The wage for my father’s side [indentured servant] enumerated: a free trip to the New World in exchange for five years servitude at slave wages and then freedom.

The wage for the African slave [generally, followed much the same line as Rome vs. Jews pre -70 AD] enumerated: We [the captors] will not kill you, but, we will sell you into slavery and dyspepsia. For the American slave captor, the price of a slave: they received trinkets for the captured, but also, when the purchaser shipped the slave to America, the captors received security in knowing that those slaves would not come in the night and kill their family a year from now.

“The flies were so thick as the slave ships landed that they blocked the sun.”; so to, will be fairness in equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness succumbing to the greed of green. I suspect that as the powerful look over their shoulders with their agents, they will all fall into the spiritual pit/trap, probably more than the ones “without a pot to wiz in and a window to through it out”. The one thing the powerful and the agent cannot deny the weak: a prayer from the enslaved.

lib•er•ty
[lib-er-tee] –noun, plural -ties.
1. freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.
2. freedom from external or foreign rule; independence.
3. freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.
EXPAND
4. freedom from captivity, confinement, or physical restraint: The prisoner soon regained his liberty.
5. permission granted to a sailor, especially in the navy, to go ashore.
6. freedom or right to frequent or use a place: The visitors were given the liberty of the city.
7. unwarranted or impertinent freedom in action or speech, or a form or instance of it: to take liberties.
8. a female figure personifying freedom from despotism.
COLLAPSE

—Idiom
9. at liberty,
a. free from captivity or restraint.
b. unemployed; out of work.
c. free to do or be as specified: You are at liberty to leave at any time during the meeting.